


That what I lov’d, and long must love

by vermicious_knid



Category: Pan (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 19:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6021379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beat before Mary took her last breath, she found it extraordinary that she would die in a place she once never could have imagined existed at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That what I lov’d, and long must love

The beat before Mary took her last breath, she found it extraordinary that she would die in a place she once never could have imagined existed at all. She had been one of plenty, a small hovel in Whitechapel. Around the same time Marie Antoinette met her bloody end at the guilllotine, Mary was born. Her mother met with consumption shortly after. With no other living relatives, she was sent to the workhouse.

Malnourished and small like the others, timid and easily picked on - she would have maybe lasted no more than a year if it hadn’t been for that day in Kensington gardens. Up until that point, she had only seen fairies on billboards and on the labels of liquor bottles. She did not know what magic was, and if god did indeed exist, she would only know his love when she met her end. She had been carrying an order of clean clothes on her back, and it was late – the lanterns for the evening had been lit across town several hours ago. She had walked past the gates in a hurry – and yet felt compelled to stop when she saw a bright spark traveling across the surface of the pond. If a fire had broken out – it had to be alerted quickly – she had heard stories about the Great fire. Everyone was afraid of fires in London. Making her way quietly inside the park, she was surprised to see that it was not fire at all – but something almost indescribable. There were two very small people- no bigger than mice, dancing across the murky water and they sparkled. Were they angels? They stopped when they saw her – and then they moved towards her, flying through the air. Stunned and afraid, little Mary could only stand where she was. They giggled and laughed at her, pointed at her exposed, dirty feet. They had tiny, black eyes and faces that seemed blurred and translucent – yet she could clearly see their features – tiny razor teeth and pink and turquoise freckles. Remembering the stolen biscuit in her apron pocket, she slowly took it out and held it out towards them. They glanced between each other, their giggles ceasing. Carefully, one of them reached out with an impossibly small hand and snatched the biscuit from her palm, the other fairy trying to grab a piece of it as well. Watching them, Mary’s eyes became that of a Real Living child and her cheeks grew vibrantly rosy – her usually matted, dirty hair seemed to grow healthier as well just by being near these two creatures. Then without another glance, they disappeared further into the park somewhere where she would never find them. Even if only one such occasion would have been enough for an ordinary child to regain something of their spirit for the rest of their lives, it was not the last.

Over the following months, it was now not uncommon for the girl to try and sneak more special treats into her pockets if she knew that she’d be going out at night. Though she was not aware of it at the time, her prolonged exposure to the tiny pixies had a peculiar effect. And what felt like no time at all, she could suddenly understand what the creatures were saying to each other. Rude things mostly, but that was to be expected of a fairy. They told her that they were grateful for her gifts and kindness, and offered to take her to a place where she would never go hungry, and would never grow old. She surprised them then by saying “I can gladly go without hunger, but I cannot wait til I grow older.” Nevertheless she agreed to come with them, and that very day she left London behind for the place beyond the stars.

The two fairies introduced her to the fairy court, their king and their queen. Though she became much liked within their court – she was still a human child, unteached and new to their world, and therefore unsuitable to stay with them indefinitely. And most shocking of all, she had decided that she did indeed want to grow up. She came to stay with the Indians for awhile, where she was expected to help with the cooking and sewing when she wasn’t learning about the history of the island. But instead, she chose to become one of their most influential warriors.

When she was just shy of sixteen, she returned to the fairy court. Their prince was the same age as she, arrogant and charming and so likable that it drove Mary to frustration. Of course she fell in love with him, her heart being fed to him in tiny slivers. Nobody asked her to return to London. But tiger lily understood her perfectly – you cannot separate what you are from your roots. So she returns the same way the fairies have for centuries, flying through the sky almost weightlessly and invisible. She looks around and wishes to understand this world as well as the other she has seen – wants to be able to come here whenever she can. Perhaps even understand how two such different worlds can exist at once without the other breaking to pieces. She leads several different lives, slipping through each with nothing but the closing of a door. As a man, she visits the boxing rings, goes to the museums and walkes along the thames early in the morning. As a woman– a fake wedding band on her finger and a respectable home address is all it takes to be introduced into society. She attends the theatre, the opera house. She observes how demmed uncomfortable the women’s dresses are, and have seen more than one woman faint due to the constricting corsets. She can almost hear Tiger Lily’s evil chuckle in her ear, or the fairy queen’s loss for words for how stupid the human’s fixation for fashion is.

When she comes back from her visit to her place in the indian camp, there are some grave news waiting for her. The chief mother has joined the Never, and in the wake of her passing, the chief has not spoken a single word since. But it is not all – and this is the first time that she comes to learn of the pirates on the island. Nobody knows how or when they found this place – but they have. Despite the magic of the island working as a vaccine against people like them, the pirates have learned to become immune to neverbirds and giant crocodiles. Their only great adversaries are the mermaids, but those are easily avoided when you have a ship that flies. They have begun digging in the earth, and the mountains, for fairy dust. They are too many to drive off in a direct attack – negotiation being the only choice left until another plan can be set into motion.

On another visit back on earth, she approaches everyone she knows who knows something about political strategy. As a woman, they laugh in her face. As a man, they frown and give a thoughtful – if slightly guarded answer. Disgruntled, she goes to check out books on the subject from the updated library – mid 19th century is a far better time for literature than she can ever remember. Time is running out. Meanwhile war is raging across the atlantic ocean in the united states of America – two sides of the same piece of land against each other, and Mary cannot help but compare it to what they are facing behind Jupiter and closer to Saturn. Time is running out –and she must soon decide on which world is more important. She cannot keep running between them like this. In an attempt to step away from her brooding thoughts, she decided to accept the invitation to a ball. It’s a large event, but a bit of a clash between classes. She can hear the ladies complain in the corner of one parlour about the sudden entrance of several naval officers and their friends. Many men have commented on her beauty through the years, and at the age of 26 she is, she supposes, not unsightly. She has adopted some of the grace of the fairies, but the blonde white hair that reaches the low of her back is entirely her own. But she can honestly say that she has paid very little thought to her appearance in this strange life she has led.

How odd it is then that she suddenly feels so self-conscious when she meets the eyes of a drunken man who had just entered the ballroom along with several other unwanted guests. He looks so out of place (his suit dark, his boots dirty, a scar on his left cheeks burning and obvious) that her eyes cannot help but seek him out wherever he turns. He is not a normal man, she thinks.

Her suspicion is confirmed later that night, when she catches a thief in her town house and it turns out to be him. She catches him looking through her journal in the study room. She holds a knife at his pale throat and he watches her through hooded, dark eyes – a flash of red in them that lets her know that there is madness within. She’s wearing nothing but her dressing gown and night clothes, yet her posture and her strong grip on her weapon indicates that she is not someone to cross. He is once again dressed all in black, baroque fashion from an earlier era, which would have made an impression if he wasn’t soaking wet from the rain outside.

“For a lady, I’d say you’re being very untoward.” He winces as she holds the knife closer, leaving a red trail against his throat.

“If you don’t get out of here right now, I am going to call the police.”

“It was merely a curtesy call. If I had known you to be such a formidable enemy, I might have come knocking on your front door.”

“Who _are_ you?” He knocks the knife away from him, glaring at her thunderously as he wraps his throat with the sash previously around his hips. He never takes his eyes off her.

“I’m the pirate who is going to claim Neverland as my own and kill anybody who will stand in my way.” Then it is Blackbeard, the man she has heard so much about. The leader of the pirates. Ruthless and soulless, like the new industrial factories sprouting up everywhere across the city. In this moment, she spits on humankind, spits on this man who thinks he can take magic like it is his right. She stares right back into his eyes, not lowering her knife.

“Then I’m sad to say that I am going to be the one to make sure that never ever happens.”

It only takes the shriek from her ladies maid standing in the doorway to break them out of the staring contest – she quickly hides the knife behind her back and the scoundrel who shall not be named promptly jumps out the open window of the room- but not before bizarrely lowering his eyes and muttering a low apology. It is not until her maid points out her state of undress that she understands what he was apologizing for. For the rest of the night, she stays awake in a silent fury.

* * *

 

He even has the nerve to approach her later that week while she browses at a bookshop. What’s more is that he can tell who she is, even under the guise of a gentleman. How is it he knows where she lives, let alone which shops she frequents? Unless he has her followed, or if he follows her himself. What is even stranger is how he does not forget. Everytime you visit Neverland, part of your memory of this world is forgotten - and it can take a long time to remember when you get back. And yet this pirate has never forgotten. 

“And thou art dead, as young and fair…” he quotes from the book she is reading, looking over her shoulder. She snaps the book shut and turns around to glare at him. Her fake moustache suddenly feels ridiculous when faced with his own very real one. He gives her a dark grin. 

“I think you must have misunderstood me when I told you to take a flying leap.”she mutters, walking past him – trying to loose him on the busy street. She has no such luck, his stride matching hers.

“I will withdraw when it suits me. Then we may cross blades and blow each other up like normal adversaries do. Who is the yankee and who is the southerner in this battle, do you think?” he asks.

“Well, you have the cannons.”

“And you have all the arrogance of the fairy court.” He laughs with his mouth wide open and she opens her umbrella in his face to block him out of existence.

* * *

 

Back in Neverland, fights have started out between the Indians and the pirates. But they are small ones so far, with nobody dead on either side. But things are getting tense very quickly. As the pirates destroy more and more of the mountains, the fairy court grows restless and worried. There has even been talk of an evacuation. The prince has promised to set things right, and for a short time, it seems that things come to a stand still. Not quite a truce, but it is significant that Blackbeard has agreed to leave the mermaid cove caverns unexplored for fairy dust. The prince proclaims his deep love to Mary when they are alone – and while she doesn’t say it back, her kisses are loving enough for him. To love someone who is fairy when yourself are not is an illusion – like loving a song so much that you’d be willing to die for it. It is the same with the fairies affection, that burn bright and fast - but is blind to the slow wisdom and patience of man.

* * *

 

Kensington gardens are as beautiful in springtime now as she remembers it. But she had forgotten all about the English weather, and the endless days of spring rain, which meets her the day she returns from Neverland and shakes of her blond curls at the front steps of her house. It’s been freshly re-painted while new furniture has arrived overnight, expecting her arrival. But white is still in fashion, and so are garden picnics, and croquet and gothic literature that make her her feel almost wholly human.  and It’s easy to shrug off a century and put on another when it comes to clothes and appearances, but old manners and habits are quite another thing.

So is it rude or merely common curtesy for her sworn enemy to approach her, unannounced and unaccompanied at a social gathering? She can’t be sure, though it doesn’t nearly bother her so much this time, as it can be quite boring watching couples dancing across the ballroom in the same boring way over and over – nothing like the feasts given either at fairy court or at the indian village. As every other time she has seen him, he is dressed in only black - the style of his clothing somewhat more discreet than usual and not too different than that of a victorian gentleman - except on him it looks like funeral clothes. He looks famished and unwelcome. He looks a little older than last time she saw him face to face like this, but then it could also be simply fatigue. It is the first time he has waited for her to speak first. Maybe it’s because she’s had two glasses of champagne, because it takes her awhile to say something – instead she is intently aware of how close they are standing, that the same instance he breathes in, she breathes out. How very real they both seem to be. He seems to be having the same problem, or maybe he has been watching her tonight for a lot longer than she realizes. The air feels electrified between them, as if something is about to snap. For a moment she feels mad, wanting to kill him where he stands so that this bloody war can be over and done with.

Why can't he move on - why can't he forget all about her?

“Don’t you have a real name?” Is what she finally asks.

The look he gives her is borderline obsessed, heated and dark and full of unspoken things. but then something changes and he looks away, snatching a full champagne glass from a passing servant. “If I knew, I still wouldn’t tell you that.”

When they dance that night, it is a near perfect deception of normality. He even clumsily steps on her shoes once or twice, and she discovers that yes, you can laugh in the face of danger. She has danced before. But the partners she’s had have always expected her to keep up with them – this time it’s the other way around. His life will be far shorter than hers, she may not be immortal but her life has been so much longer thanks to her exposure to the fairies. He will grow old and die while she still will be young.

“How did you find Neverland?”

“Because I wanted to live forever.”

“But you won't."

When she takes him into her bedroom, it is her who drags him there as he willingly follows. When they fall on the bed, she traces her mouth along the scar on his throat – in her imagination it reopens by her touch and is sealed again when she presses her hand down against it, against him as they rock against each other – though no words are exchanged, she can truly see him, feel him – grey and unwanted, murderous and dark in ways she will never understand – but instead of giving her simply a taste of something, he doesn’t stop touching her until she feels raw and sated, until her legs start cramping up and she cries out against his neck. It feels sad afterward. she is afraid that she has become too much like the fairies – and that she can no longer understand love. In that way she has been cruel. She has been with a man she knows has the capacity to be overly stubborn, someone who will carry a lifetime of yearning for the one person who can never truly be with him. It is his one redeemable quality. While fairies only know what they want now and never tomorrow, this man will continue to know and to anticipate her for years to come.


End file.
